Approximately one in five Australian business IP addresses are subjected to Internet security threats every weekday while one in eight New Zealand business IP addresses are under threat, according to new research from Deakin University and Trend Micro.
The report, Australia and New Zealand Web threat landscape, is based on monitoring of live Internet traffic between 29 September and 12 October 2013.
The research analysed 170 million Web requests issued from Australia and 20 million Web requests issued from New Zealand per day. There were 450,000 attempts to connect to malicious websites in Australia, compared with 40,000 attempts in New Zealand.
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According to the findings, Australian business IP addresses were also more likely to be at risk on weekends. Approximately one in eight companies was susceptible to Internet threats while only one in 13 NZ businesses were at risk during the weekend.
The research also found that the United States is the biggest malicious Web hosting country targeting Australia and New Zealand. In addition, the Netherlands, Germany and wider European Union were found to be targeting both countries.
Doctor Jonathan Oliver, Trend Micro Australia and New Zealand senior architect, said that business IP addresses can appear more risky because in a work environment, multiple users operate from the same IP.
“It is more useful to compare the relative risk levels of business IPs operating in different countries. It may be the case that businesses in some countries may be attracting more cyber-criminal activity than those operating in other countries,” he said in a statement.
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